Tubs start at about £15 each and a repair if you send them away is about the same .So its either learn to do it yourself or throw old ones away .Decent tubs ride very nicely and are worth repairing .Ideally you need at least one spare under the saddle,or old school tdf style round the shoulders .You can ride on a tub flat albeit slowly because of the different rim profile in an emergency

tubs for racing IMO.. too much of a faff if you do get into trouble. To be honest with a lot of a the lihtweight clinchers for road i don't think they make a massive amount of difference for racers like me.

For cyclocros =s racing however.. yes definitely. I run 50mm carbon tubs i used for road racing and they've been amazing

Very rarely can tubular tyres be repaired at the roadside. Most users will use super sticky double sided tape like Jantex rather than glue as that makes getting a tyre off easier, carry a spare and repair the puncture at home. Thus they are really only used in races or by madmen!

I'm no fan of tubs, largely because they don't offer much in the way of a performance advantage over expensive clinchers, but are a bit more hassle to fix on and to change and to repair.

I think their current resurgence is one of these 'I'm not a newbie' things that cycling seems to throw up, a bit like using Campag used to be.

They work very well, they are cool, they are super pro, they allow the use of deep section carbon wheels without any brake track issues, but I'd rather change a clincher tube and crack on than potter home on a perhaps-not-well-stuck-tub after a rainy day puncture.

No one that I know of in my club rides tubs for a regular ride. I'd stop and help anyone with a mechanical but if they're on tubs I'd ride off and leave them as I've got no idea how to fit one and it strikes me as a daft set up for general riding.

My TT wheels are tubs. On Wednesday after work I was riding 30 miles down to a TT (as part of an ongoing warm-up experiment) at a nice leisurely pace and punctured about halfway, in the middle of nowhere. With no spare tub it was a sheepish phone call for a rescue from the amazingly good-natured Mrs Tyred.

Even if I'd had a spare tub and stuck that on if the tape was sticky enough, there's no way I'd have raced on it with any confidence. With a clincher I'd have been back on my way with slightly dirty fingers in about 5 minutes.

They do feel great up at 160psi, but the gamble of something going wrong like it did the other night compared to the ease of using clinchers I'm not convinced its worth it.

I commute on Tufo hi carbon on a vintage set of track wheels. And the ride is a lot better. They are filled with sealant and I carry extra. I figured they were half way to tubeless. All my other wheels are clinchers and I probably wouldn't buy tubs for anything other than racing. But it's a data point, and I like the wheels;

Airlite hub, GP4 rim and campag pista on the back, if tou are interested.

Airlite!old school,my blue one on fiamme tub rim need s new spokes.Im planning on riding L`eroica on tubs as ive got nice period large flange records on gp4s .I will carry some spares though and put sealant in as well

Just use them and put some sealant in them.
I got a puncture in my non-repairable Conti and put some sealant in and it has been fine and raced on without issues.

With a bit of sealant, they're a bit like tubeless and you shouldn't have to worry about pinch flats/glass etc...
But always take a spare with you just in case, you can get usable second hand ones quite cheaply.

My tubs are taped on (they came that way on second hand wheels), but when I change them, I will use glue as its really pretty simple and not that complicated as some instructions make out.
Have a bit of glue on the spare, and that will stick good enough to get you home, or will be enough for a out and back TT with no sharp fast corners if you can get enough air in it!

Tubs are quick easy to get on and off with a bit of practise.

Oh, and if you prefer tape, then tape will be fine. Tyres will not come of the rim using tape.
Im sure some manufacturers will void your warranty if you use Tufo tape as its too sticky!
I tried to remove a mates tyre that was stuck with Tufo tape and I could not get it off, that has never happened to me before!

I raced the IG Nocturn track bike crit with taped on tubs last week with no issue. Speeds in excess of 20mph and some horendous bends. By contrast a guy rolled both his glued on tubs in a race at hillingdon a month ago. On the last lap.

And yes that Airlite hub is lovely. It's radially spoked 28h too. For added aero. Just thought it was too nice not too use. I don't carry a spare, but Tufo have an extra lumpy sealant for emergencies - think clotting agent. I use that one. But have yet to puncture at all. I did have to dig some glass out last weekend though.

As I mentioned, I'd get tubs for racing, but I had the wheels already, wanted to use them and thought tubs have moved on since the 70's wrt puncture resistance (as have all tyres really). And I like the ride.

I went away racing in the 90s in Europe and had thought about using tubs, but chose the best clinchers I could afford. After a week racing in Belgium, we went off to do a stage race in Holland, and the evening before the race I rode over a bottle while coming back from the registration. Brand new tyre dead...

..but, I could go to the bike shop the next day, buy a tyre an hour before and race at lunchtime with no hassle, no thought about safety.

That made my mind up.

Clinchers are at least as good as tubs with none of the drawbacks unless you are using deep section carbon rims, and even then, there are alternatives. I did use tubs for a few prologues, but never felt like I was going any quicker because I used them.

depends on where you ride....... tubs are great but the roads round my way aren't great so it's cost me a pretty penny in tub repairs, so much so i no longer use them.....tubs for racing! However many more wheels are tubeless so similar/the same as you possible run on the MTB, i've only heard good things but never tried it on the road myself but i'm going to race CX tubeless this year for the first time.

Have a Google, there are are a couple of tests out there showing that clinchers actually have lower rolling resistance than tubs. On the other hand, lots of people will tell you that tubs "feel fast"...
Used to have a set of tubular wheels that I got second hand, but have clinchers on my TT bike now. Less hassle, and I haven't seen any objective evidence that tubs are faster.

I've been having the same debate myself for a few months now. I really want to own and ride a set of high quality tubs at least once in my life most likely because I was not allowed them when I was a kid and its like a nostalgia thing. But the faff really does put me off.

If you want that magic carpet ride quality then you can get close with a set 'open' tubulars tyres with latex inner tubes. Open tubs are either tubs that aren't sewn up and have a bead in them or they are clinchers just made slightly differently. They are different to other clincher tyres though and they do give a fabulous ride, especially when used with latex tubes.

Vittoria Corsa or the classic Open Pave, Veloflex Corsa or Challenge Criteriums will all give you performance almost as good as the equivalent tub without any of the hassle. Expect to pay over £40 a tyre though and £7 per inner tube. You can run these tyres up to around 140psi but running them at 100 psi is magical, in particular the Open Paves which are utterly sublime.

Had no problems in 800 miles with conti sprinter gator skins (300g) taped onto hope hoops rs5.0 carbon wheels on my 'one bike for all uses' bike. That's Sunday cafe rides, quick club rides, TTs, commuting. They've been fine. The tubs were £35 each on offer and I'd happily buy them again. Just bought a set of rs80 wheels and fitted them with veloflex master open tubs with Michelin a1 tubes and the ride is a lot softer though just as enjoyable.
My attitude was/is; just have a try of it yourself and then you'll know whether it's for you or not.

I never said mine felt fast, just that I liked them and they felt different. This could obviously be confounded with the wheels, which are a little lighter than the winter wheels and have GP4 rims not Open Pros.

But the ride would be a lot more sketchy without the tubs and I've designed and run enough placebo controlled trials, it's my day job

Can you expand objectively aracer or is it a personal subjective thing? Genuine question.
When I picked the conti sprinters they fulfilled all the needs I had for trying tubs for the first time. The challenge Grifos on my CX bike feel different but I'd expect that given the volume difference and many other things which means they don't really compare at all.

I had a pair of pianni rims with vittoria special pave tubs built up for the paris roubaix sportive. They did feel much more comfortable over rough roads, cobbles and light off road sections than pianni clinchers with vittoria open paves.
I had vittoria pit stop mousse in them and i had one puncture in about 1200miles. The mousse kept them up! When i did come to change the tub it was a pretty simple job. Pretty low down the difficulty scale imo, tje glue STINKS tho. I have read that tubs are more reliable and less puncture prone than clinchers. That might be bs, i dunno.
I'd probably go tubs again,but, my last wheel build was clincher..